During an emergency event, there is need to identify people within the area of the emergency. This problem is normally addressed by emergency and rescue crews searching through rubble, questioning bystanders, survivors, and the like. As such, this process can be quite time consuming and it is not uncommon for a lot of time to be spent searching an area in a grid pattern or other logically laid out search method.
However, one problem with a logical search pattern is that the first areas being searched may or may not have any persons therein while another location lower on the search area order may have people trapped therein. Further, the grid search may place emergency workers in peril while searching a location that has no persons therein.
In addition, in some cases, it may be hours or even days before the emergency workers, family members and friends have a clear idea of who and how many people they should be expecting to find. This lack of knowledge can be detrimental and has been known to cause a secondary search event to occur after it is ascertained that a person or persons remain unaccounted for in the emergency area.